Greg Iles - Turning Angel

“I can’t fucking believe it, Penn. It’s literally beyond belief. Did you know her? Did you know Kate at all?”

“We spoke a few times. She asked about my books. But we never got beyond the surface. Mia talked about her a lot.”

His eyes search out mine in the shadows. “You and I haven’t got beneath the surface much either these past five years. It’s more my fault than yours, I know. I keep a lot inside.”

“We all do,” I say awkwardly, wondering where this is going.

“Who really knows anybody, right? Twelve years of school together, best friends when we were kids. You know a lot about me, but on the other hand you know nothing. The front, like everybody else.”

“I hope I see past that, Drew.”

“I don’t mean to insult you. If anyone sees beneath the surface, it’s you. That’s why I’m talking to you now.”

“Well, I’m here. Let’s talk.”

He nods as if confirming a private judgment. “I want to hire you.”

“Hire me?”

“As a lawyer.”

This is the last thing I expected to hear. “You know I don’t practice anymore.”

“You took the Payton case, that old civil rights bombing.”

“That was different. And that was five years ago.”

Drew stares at me in the glow of the dashboard lights. “This is different, too.”

It always is to the client. “I’m sure it is. The thing is, I’m not really a lawyer anymore. I’m a writer. If you need a lawyer, I can recommend several good ones. Is it malpractice?”

Drew blinks in astonishment. “Malpractice? You think I’d waste your time with bullshit like that?”

“Drew…I don’t know what this is about. Why don’t you tell me what the problem is?”

“I want to, but-Penn, what if you were sick? You had HIV, say. And you came to me and said, ’Drew, please help me. As a friend. I want you to treat me and not tell a soul.‘ And what if I said, ’Penn, I’d like to, but that’s not my specialty. You need to go to a specialist.‘ ”

“Drew, come on-”

“Hear me out. If you said, ’Drew, as a friend, please do me this favor. Please help me.‘ You know what? I wouldn’t think twice. I’d do whatever you wanted. Treat you without records, whatever.”

He would. I can’t deny it. But there’s more than this beneath his words. Drew has left much unsaid. The truth is that without Drew Elliott, I wouldn’t be alive today. When I was fourteen years old, Drew and I hiked away from the Buffalo River in Arkansas and got lost in the Ozark Mountains. Near dark, I fell into a gorge and broke my femur. Drew was only eleven, but he crawled down into that gorge, splinted my leg with a tree limb, then built a makeshift litter and started dragging me through the night. Before he was done, he dragged me four miles through the mountains, breaking his wrist in the process and twice almost breaking his neck. Just after dawn, he managed to get me to a cluster of tents where someone had a CB radio. But has he mentioned any of that? No. It’s my job to remember.

“Why do you want to hire me, Drew?”

“To consult. With the protection of confidentiality.”

“Shit. You don’t have to hire me for that.”

He pulls his wallet from his pants and takes out a twenty-dollar bill, which he pushes at me. “I know that. But if you were questioned on the stand later-as a friend-you’d have to lie to protect me. If you’re my lawyer, our discourse will be shielded by attorney-client privilege.” He’s still pushing the bill at me. “Take it, Penn.”

“This is crazy-”

“Please, man.”

I wad up the note and shove it into my pocket. “Okay, damn it. What’s going on?”

He sags back in his seat and rubs his temples like a man getting a migraine. “I knew Kate a lot better than anyone knows.”

Kate Townsend again? The sense of dislocation I felt in the boardroom was nothing compared to what I feel now. Again I see Drew sitting at the table, weeping as though for a family member. Even as I ask the next question, I pray that I’m wrong.

“Are you telling me you were intimate with the girl?”

Drew doesn’t blink. “I was in love with her.”

My heart is pounding the way it does on the all-too-rare occasions when I run for exercise. I’m sitting in front of the St. Stephen’s Preparatory School with one of the most distinguished alumni who ever attended it, and he’s telling me he was screwing a high school student. A student who is now dead. This man is my lifelong friend, yet the first words that pass my lips are not those of a friend but of a lawyer. “Tell me she was eighteen, Drew.”

“Her birthday was in two weeks.”

I suck in my breath and close my eyes. “It might as well have been two years. That’s statutory rape in Mississippi. Especially with the age difference between you. It’s what, twenty years?”

“Almost twenty-three.”

I shake my head in disbelief.

He takes my arm and pulls it toward him, forcing me to look into his eyes. “I’m not crazy, Penn. I know you think I’ve lost my mind, but I loved that girl like no one I’ve known in my life.”

I look away, focusing on the playground of the middle school, where water has pooled on the merry-go-round. What to say? This isn’t a case of some horny assistant coach who got too chummy with a cheerleader in the locker room. This is an educated and successful man in the grip of a full-blown delusion.

“Drew, I prosecuted a lot of child molesters in Houston. I remember one who had regularly molested an eleven-year-old girl. Can you guess what his defense was?”

“What?”

“They were in love.”

He snorts with disdain. “You know this isn’t like that.”

“Do I? Jesus Christ, man.”

“Penn…until you’re in a situation like this, you simply can’t understand it. I was the first to condemn that coach who got involved with that senior over at the public school. I couldn’t fathom it then. But now…I see it from the inside.”

“Drew, you’ve thrown your life away. Do you realize that? You could go to jail for twenty years. I can’t even…” My voice fails, because it suddenly strikes me that I may not have heard the worst of what will be revealed in this car tonight. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”

The blood drains from his face. “Are you out of your mind?”

“What did you expect me to ask?”

“Not that. And there’s something pretty damned cold in your tone.”

“If you don’t like my tone, wait till you hear the district attorney. You and Kate Townsend? Holy shit. ”

“I didn’t kill her, Penn.”

I take another deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, of course not. Do you think she committed suicide?”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because we were planning to leave together. Kate was excited about it. Not depressed at all.”

“You were planning to run away together?”

“Not run away. But to be together, yes.”

“She was a kid, Drew.”

“In some ways. Not many. Kate had a different kind of upbringing. She went through a lot, and she learned a lot from it. She was very mature for her age, both psychologically and emotionally. And that’s saying something these days. These kids aren’t like we were, Penn. You have no idea. By fifteen they’ve gone through things you and I didn’t experience until our twenties. Some of them are jaded by eighteen.”

“That doesn’t mean they understand what they’re doing. But I’ll be sure and run that argument past the jury.”

Drew’s eyes flicker. “Are you saying you’ll represent me?”

“I was joking. Who else knows about this relationship?”